Turkey will benefit the most from the European Union's 927 million euro ($1.01 billion) fund for pre-accession countries in agricultural and rural development, the European Commission announced on Wednesday.
The commission adopted assistance programs to support candidate countries in the field of agriculture in the 2021-2027 period, the EU executive body said in a press statement.
Set to receive 430 million euros from the fund, Turkey will be the biggest beneficiary of the EU grant.
Albania will receive 112 million euros, while North Macedonia will get 97 million euros and Serbia 288 million euros.
The commission estimates that the EU support, together with national public and private contributions, will generate in total over 2 billion euros of investments in rural parts of the Western Balkans and Turkey.
The pre-accession assistance for rural development (IPARD) programs support the sustainable management of natural resources, climate action, efforts to raise living conditions by improving infrastructure, diversifying economic activities and fostering employment, particularly among women and young people.
In total, the EU allocated 14.2 billion euros in support for candidate and potential candidate countries to implement reforms towards EU membership for the budgetary period of 2021-2027.
